Decision to honour cop-killer angers police leaders

PUBLISHED: 14:05 25 September 2008 | UPDATED: 13:39 05 October 2010

Churchill (highlighted) at 1911 Siege of Sidney St and plaque (inset) to Peter the Painter

POLICE Federation chiefs are angry after learning that a housing organisation named two tower blocks after the anarchist leader of a gang that killed three cops which led to the 1911 Siege of Sidney Street. The row centres on Whitechapel’s Peter House and Painter House at the southern end of Sidney Street in London’s East End. Two plaques have just been erected to honour anarchist leader Peter the Painter’

POLICE Federation chiefs are angry after learning that a housing organisation named two tower blocks after the anarchist leader of a gang that killed three cops which led to the 1911 Siege of Sidney Street.

The row centres on Whitechapel’s Peter House and Painter House at the southern end of Sidney Street in London’s East End.

Two plaques have just been erected by Tower Hamlets Community Housing to honour Peter Piaktow, anarchist leader Peter the Painter’.

Piaktow led a gang of Russian anarchists who shot dead three policemen in Houndsditch in December, 1910.

The murders sparked the Siege of Sidney Street a month later when the-then Home Secretary Winston Churchill narrowly missed a bullet during a shoot-out involving police and a reinforcement of Scots Guards billeted at the Tower of London who were called in.

The siege began at 2am on January 3, 1911. By 11am Churchill arrived to take control. At one point a bullet passed through his top hat. When a blaze broke out in the block, thought to have been caused by a spark from a bullet hitting a gas pipe, he refused to allow firemen to douse the flames.

The bodies of Fritz Svaars and William Sokolow were later recovered.

But Peter the Painter was never found—some doubt he was actually there.

Tower Hamlets Community Housing this week denied it was glorifying cop killers.

The plaques were part of a project to give residents a link to the history of their area, its chief executive Mike Tyrell insisted.

“There is no evidence that Peter the Painter killed the three policemen,” he said.

“So we knew we were not naming the block after a murderer.

“There is some doubt as to whether he existed, but he is the name East Enders associate with the Siege of Sidney Street.”

He added: “As there is already a Siege House (in Sidney Street), Peter the Painter was the obvious choice for a name for the two parts of the development.

“These names were put to the officer in the council responsible for street naming, who in turn consulted with the police and fire brigade.”

The three policemen killed by Piaktow’s anarchist gang, Sgt Thomas Tucker, 46, Sgt Robert Bentley, 40, and Pc Joseph Choate, 32, were buried with the highest honours at the City of London Cemetery in Manor Park after an historic service at St Paul’s Cathedral attended by representatives of King George V.